Hydrogenated Zinc Oxide as an Alternative Low-Loss Plasmonic Material with Fano Resonance in Near-IR

<br/>Low-loss plasmonic materials are of great importance due to their use in many photonic and optoelectronic devices. Doped transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are potential alternatives to metallic plasmonic materials owing to their reduced losses and the tunability of their complex dielectric function. In this work, first-principles calculations were employed to reveal the role of interstitial hydrogen (H_i) doping in zinc oxide (ZnO) to achieve low losses and excite surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). Three different concentrations of H_i doping (4.16, 6.25, 8.33%) were investigated. The results show that an H_i concentration as low as 4.16% achieves excellent low-loss plasmonic behavior. The fitted Drude damping parameter at 4.16% H_i doping was found to be lower than that reported for the same aluminum (Al) concentration. Finally, we numerically show that Fano resonance can be excited in near-infrared (IR) using a simple symmetric cylinder with an air hole made of hydrogen-doped ZnO placed on a pure ZnO substrate, revealing its potential use in numerous applications.